Japan overpowered??

[Shroud8]

Anyone else think Japan's special ability, Bushido is too powerful??

Bushido (Japan): Units fight as though they were at full strength even when damaged.


In Civ Revolution they had an ability with one of the civs that if you won a battle, you got full healing, which meant for the next fight you were effectively full strength, which basically meant you needed just one/two fortified troops to guard an entire city and take on massive stacks from the enemy, everytime you won, it was like a whole new troop.

So, if Japanese units fight at full strength even if damaged, isnt it very similar? Does it make archers almost useless against them, as damaging them does basically nothing?

 

[12agnar0k]

no damaging them will still make them easier to kill, its just they will eat healthily from your hp with each melee attack that goes on. Where as other civ's will do a little bit less damage.

 

[Shurdus]

Welcome to civfanatics, Shroud8!

 

[Shroud8]

Thanks Shurdus, been lurking for a long time, since some time in Civ III.

If they fight at full strength, 12agnar0k, then how will damaging them make them easier to kill? please explain?

 

[Dragonflow]

You need to use tactics against Japan and not simply try overrunning them with masses of units. You have to use artillery, aircraft and ships to take out the tough Japanese units.

Also welcome to civfanatics,Shroud8.

 

[JonoLith]

I'm still extremely skeptical of those four special abilities that seem to be floating around this site now. I'm more then willing to wait to see something official before concluding those are final, or even real. I mean, they came from a random picture that wasn't even connected to an article. Just some dude throwing a pic up on the internet. That counts as legit right?

 

[Shroud8]

I was just basing it off that "analyst" website, i dont know where he got the info from, so if it turns out to be wrong (which I hope) then good news.

If you have 2 soldiers of 10 str, and an archer wears him down to 3 str , and then your 10/10 soldier attacks, based on this ability the fight will be 10 vs 10. so whats the point?

 

[Siran]

The fight is 10 vs. 10, but after 3 are killed, you still have your soldier slightly wounded at 7 and a very dead japanese soldier.

 

[Dragonflow]

IIRC bombardment can kill in Civ5, that means you just need a lot of artillery and aircraft if you're fighting Japan.

 

[Mercade]

In Civ Revolution they had an ability with one of the civs that if you won a battle, you got full healing, which meant for the next fight you were effectively full strength, which basically meant you needed just one/two fortified troops to guard an entire city and take on massive stacks from the enemy, everytime you won, it was like a whole new troop.

So, if Japanese units fight at full strength even if damaged, isnt it very similar? Does it make archers almost useless against them, as damaging them does basically nothing?

Several points:

1. Bushido doesn't give full healing. It only removes the strength penalty of being hurt.
2. Archers still hurt a unit, so a next unit doesn't have to chip away as many hitpoints.
3. Civ5 doesn't have unit stacking, so you cannot have two fortified units in a city.

Thanks Shurdus, been lurking for a long time, since some time in Civ III.

If they fight at full strength, 12agnar0k, then how will damaging them make them easier to kill? please explain?

Let's say in Civ4 my Knight and Horse Archer encounter an enemy Maceman (strength = 8, health = 100%). For the purpose of simplicity, I'm not getting into bonusses or special abilities.

My knight is the stronger unit, while my horse archer (s=6) would be weaker. I attack the Maceman (s=8, h=100%) with my knight (s=10, h=100%). The maceman is lucky and survives with 50% health.

In Civ4 (and presumably in Civ5 too), being hurt causes a penalty modifier on the combat strength. With 50% health, the macemen will effectively have a lower strength (s=4, h=50%). Now my Horse Archer (s=6, h=100%) will be the stronger and healthier unit, which gives me a good chance to win this battle.

In Civ5 with Bushido, the Japanese unit will fight as if he's at full strength, but still at lowered health. Same scenario. After the encounter with my knight, the maceman is hurt (h=50%).

Now my horse archer (s=6, h=100%) has to fight hurt bushido maceman (s=8, h=50%), making my horse archer the weaker party, but healthier. I don't know the odds, but my horse archer still stands a chance.

Hope this clarifies the effect of Bushido. In short:

• Bushido doesn't give full healing. It only removes the strength penalty of being hurt.

 

[CTH]

I would think that the japanese would be great on attacking cities, many previewers has written that when you reach a city the city has already damaged you quite alot (if it is a big city). The japanese would not be as affected by that as other civs.

 

[Shroud8]

Hey Mercade,

Thanks for your post, it presents an interesting argument.

I guess not much more to ponder over this but wait & see how it plays out in the game and trust the devs will balance it fairly.

Sounds like they took the ability from Civ Rev and tweaked it to be not as powerful.

 

[Senethro]

Any guesses on whether strength will be modified in-fight? If a regular unit vs. an equal Japanese unit both lose 2 rounds of combat, will the regular unit now have lowered strength and a greatly decreased chance to win the fight?

 

[pi-r8]

In pretty much every civ-like game I've ever played, economic bonuses have always been better than purely military ones. Japan was routinely rated the worst civ in Civ 4, because it had no economic traits. military bonuses only help when you actually get to fight, but economic bonuses help during the hundreds of turns before any actual fighting happens, so when the fight does come you've got the enemy outgunned and outteched.

To me the Russian bonus sounds like the best one so far, but we'll see.

 

[Mercade]

Any guesses on whether strength will be modified in-fight? If a regular unit vs. an equal Japanese unit both lose 2 rounds of combat, will the regular unit now have lowered strength and a greatly decreased chance to win the fight?

The screenshot literally says: "Units fight as though they were at full strength even when damaged".

My guess is to interpret it as "Japanese units do not suffer a strength penalty when hurt", so also during combat.

 

[Senethro]

The screenshot literally says: "Units fight as though they were at full strength even when damaged".

My guess is to interpret it as "Japanese units do not suffer a strength penalty when hurt", so also during combat.

Can that really be the case? That would make all fights vs. Japanese units dependent on who won the first the first 2 rounds of combat. If the Japanese won, the odds shift hugely in their favour. If the non-Japanese won, the Japanese unit still has a fighting chance due to not losing Str along with health.

 

[bjbrains]

Also, it doesn't look like strength reduction is nearly as painful as civ 4s - That is, a unit with 1 HP out of 10 fights with more than 10% strength, so japan's bonus is good, but not as powerful as it seems.

 

[ace94d]

Are we really talking about "overpowered" before the demo is even out...?

 

[King Jason]

Just since it wasn't explicitly stated, but rather impled/alluded to in Mercades post (and imo, one could still think solely in terms of civ4's mechanics in it): Unit health and Unit strength are separate in civ5, unlike civ4...

So to augment Mercades example; Let's give those units actual Health points for the civ5 portion, to give a better sense of why there's value in damaging a unit;

Let's say, using random made up numbers, that the Maceman's health is 15... let's then say that in the knight's battle, it does 10 dmg to the mace... and in the horses battle, it does 6... 10+6 = a dead maceman. The damage the mace does to it's opponent is irrelevant, since after two assaults, the mace will still die.

If the knight has 20 hp and the horse 10... A japanese Mace would simply deal 8 dmg to both, regardless of who attacked first. Where as a non-japanese mace might do 8 dmg to the first attacker, then 6 to the next.

Japan's bonus doesn't increase the longevity of the unit (not directly). It just ensures that you're always getting the biggest "bang" out of the unit.

 

[12agnar0k]

All units and cities have 10 health.

Although this is not 100% gaurenteed I think we have established this from the footage that exists.

So why is Japan's ability not like Civ-Rev's auto-heal ability.

Well its simple, as someone else mentioned, health and strength are seperated, and when health is 0 your unit dies.

Normally when your health is lower your "damage" (that your strength dictates) is also lower. Damage to an enemies health is decided by your health and your strength.
However in Japan's case, Health never factors into damage or "strength". (Note: Strength is never shown to decrease when low on health, this is why I invented the term damage)

This means that in melee they have the advantage, I will explain.

Assume a longswordsman deals 6 damage without damage modifiers. This means two full strength melee attacks will be needed to kill a 10 Health Unit.
(The actual damage a unit does depends on your strength, your health (accept in Japans case) and your enemies strength.)
The second melee attack is where things go different for Japan, a low health longswordsman should deal less than 6 damage, but Japan will still deal the full 6 damage, so to kill his longsword of 10 HP you take a total of 12 damage (which could be a lost unit on your side too). Ignoring all other multipliers.
Where as with another civ, the damaged sword would do say 3 damage in the second melee (a guess) and this means definitely no loss on your side to kill the enemy sword.

The way to get around this advantage (which isn't massively overpowered anyway) is to soften the target with ranged if you can't simply kill it with ranged, as now you only have to hit it once against its full strength retaliation to kill it because of its low health. You defintely won't lose a unit attacking but you will need to sit around and heal more HP than if you had ranged and melee'd a different Civ.

.........

Its not "over-powered" by a long way, however it is a decent ability and will make them great melee fighters. (Their low health ranged units will also do full damage which is cool , but with no ranged retaliation its not that useful. Accept in making a counter attack.)
Their are more powerful military abilities such as Russia's "Double Horse, Double Iron, Double Uranium & +1 Prod on Strategic Resource Tiles."

.........

Also how "powerful" Japans ability is depends on the ratio of Health & Strength. We can safely assume it is less than 1:1 because if X reduction in health lead to an equal X reduction in Strength then the sepearation of Health & Strength is pointless. So depending on what the ratio is will depend how strong the ability is. If its close to 1:1 say 0.75:1 then the ability will be quite strong, where as if the ability is 0.25:1 the ability isn't that great.

It should be fairly easy to work out if you know what an enemys health & damage is before an attack, and then what their health & damage is afterwards. I will edit in the ratio if I figure it out.

Edit : Unfortunately the only footage I have found of the same unit surving two attack two units by melee before dying is on the "closed E3 Demo" footage and its too blurry to make out, but I can just about make out the fact that the Rifleman had 10 hp damage inflicted before dying so yeah I'm pretty certain 10hp is the health on everything.